An online retail typically offers products for sale around the lock, with no down time, Remaining open for business 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, makes it difficult for a retailer to perform a physical inventory count because product quantities are constantly in flux. Unlike a brick and mortar store that is able to perform an inventory count when the store is closed, and online retailer needs a way to take inventor at any time and to keep interrelated business actions involving that inventory synchronized.
Existing inventory management solutions typically require integration between a physical inventory control system and a dynamic order management system. Such a division of roles poses a number of disadvantages, such as limiting the inventory available for sale due to allocated inventory and also being unable to count physical inventory without halting business. Online retail business need an automatic means of tracking both physical inventory and available inventory and keeping these synchronized constantly. Typically, existing warehouse solutions only track inventory on a physical level, and do not account for pending orders that make inventory that is on hand nonetheless unavailable for sale. Such implementations often force the retailer to allocate dedicated inventory for individual sales channels to prevent overselling.
In attempts to address some of the shortcomings described above, certain advances in the inventory management industry have been made, including the following:
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0164343 by Hurtis et al. discloses building an order in response to a sale, similar to what is described hereinbelow as picking an order. However, the allocation of parts to build a specific order is not disclosed, nor is tracking how much inventory is available for sale in aggregate and how much is physically in a servicing warehouse. Inventory is reserved for incoming orders, but not specifically allocated for a given order. Instead, the disclosed implementation merely reserves that inventory to adjust the available inventory for sale.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0279294 by Field-Darragh et al. relates to the distribution of an order from a retail environment to a fulfillment center with a centralized warehouse system. However, this disclosure is silent on tracking the actual quantities physically in each place while maintaining an available aggregate quantity. Nor does the disclosed implementation relate to specific bin locations within the warehouse.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0174146 by Tamarkin et al. discloses inventory organized in a tree structure so that inventory at the smallest bin level gets summed up to determine the physical inventory in the bigger storage area (e.g., warehouse level). More specifically, inventory allocations must be made at the bottom of the tree on the bin level. However, the disclosure is silent on, for example, reserving inventory on the warehouse level for pending orders and having the aggregate available inventory adjusted without any physical change or allocation on the bin level.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.